i agree sodium intake could be troublesome. especially if your potassium intake is low. potassium intake can be of use in cases of sodium imbalance.
bubba that means fresh fruit and vegetables.. and why the heck do you salt beer of all things 8P ugh! lol
i know my potassium is low when, for example, i do laps in the pool and my feet cramp up and feel like my toes are trying to cross starting from the ankle!
it is difficult to get the right amount of potassium from diet - we're supposed to get 4500mg per day and only 600-800 of that might come from say, a banana (i can't stand bananas!).
here is an animation of interactive awesomeness which really demonstrates well (i think it was about 10 minutes to complete?) the actions of sodium and potassium which are required for messages to travel through nerves to muscles.
you will probably note that a sodium channel blocker might be useful when there is not enough potassium in the picture.
http://outreach.mcb.harvard.edu/animati ... ential.swf
in this second equally awesome but shorter animation, you can see the need for phosphate and ATP to keep things in balance via the sodium-potassium pump:
so as for the sodim-potassium pump and its need for ATP... ATP formation requires adequate polyunsaturated fatty acid status (ATP is formed from ADP so if the ratio is lower that seems to indicate that the body would be converting less ADP to ATP).
The effects of a 4-week deficiency in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in isolated rat hepatocytes have been investigated for oxidative phosphorylation and fatty acid, dihydroxyacetone (DHA) or glycerol metabolism. ... The PUFA-deficient group exhibited a significant decrease in the cytosolic ATP/ADP ratio, whereas the mitochondrial ratio was not affected. PUFA deficiency led to a 16% decrease in DHA metabolism owing to a 34% decrease in glycerol kinase activity; the significant decrease in the ATP/ADP ratio was accompanied by an increase in the fractional glycolytic flux...
many of us take omega 3s and the use of these fatty acids is known to improve EDSS. at the same time i have not yet run into research to suggest that ms patients have different fatty acid status than healthy controls (rather the opposite, but i haven't done an in-depth lit review on that topic yet).
but at the root of this i would think if you notice problems with sodium intake, you probably need to address potassium balance. i have a second degree of separation acquaintance with a nurse who provides potassium pills 600 mg to a friend of mine. i haven't looked very hard, but have only ever seen 99mg potassium pills in the stores.
my foot cramped up while i was visiting the other day and i took one of these 600mg K pills and it sorted right out.
also i asked my genius pharmacist how to make the magnesium which had helped my dysphagia so much, work even better, and he said potassium and magnesium go hand in hand.
at the end of the day, sodium channel blockers do sound to me like another example of pharmaceutical ridonkulousness. eat your fruits and veggies! if eating salt gives you problems, it is a straight up indicator that you don't have enough potassium in your system to keep things working properly (with a possible second to fatty acids).